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Becca Porter

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Posts posted by Becca Porter

  1. Dorie, I just noticed something funny. The serving note on your Swedish Visiting Cake mentions that this is meant to be cut in small wedges and eaten sans fork. It says it is a finger cake.

    Then the picture of the cake opposite the recipe has three forks in it. I wondered if you had noticed. It is one of those cute items in the book. I am loving it so far.

  2. My copy just came in the mail! It was hard to tear myself away from it to come post. It is a beautiful book, with lots of pictures :biggrin: . One thing I love is when the book cover is as beautiful as the dust cover. I really can't stand the dust covers and always remove them.

    The first thing I am making is the lemon cream tart. I have been forced to hear about Pierre's lemon cream in Patricks post forever. I have been dying to try it as lemon is my favorite flavor.

    I can't wait to give my report!

  3. I wouldn't mind doing both. I am running through them pretty fast. I am open to suggestions.

    I am making the Cardinal Slice today. I just ate scraps from the ends, and I am wanting more. I think I may have overbaked it. I think my oven is running hot, and my oven thermometer broke. I assume the meringue shouldn't brown. It is not so overbaked that it will not be enjoyed though :raz: .

  4. I made the French apple tart a couple night ago. My apples were a little tart, but the taste was wonderful. My apple slices on top were not quite right :wink: , but it wasn't too bad. My husband loved it.

    I made the Rustic Potato Loaves last night. I was cooking a quick supper of potato leek soup and caeser salad. It was terrific with the dinner. I was pretty happy with my shaping. At least it turned out better than I expected. I just needed to make it more rounded in the middle. Mine were a little too long.

    The taste was wonderful. I love any kind of potato bread and these were the best yet. I have almost finished my roll of film, so I should be able to post pictures soon.

    Tonight I am making the Expresso Profiteroles. My ice cream is in the ice bath now. I have a feeling these will taste like a fancy version of fried ice cream. I can't wait.

  5. Well I finally did it. Between my success with Baking With Julia and this thread I couldn't hold out any longer. I just ordered this book from Jessica's Biscuit. Of course I wanted the free shipping and free magazine so I also ordered: Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme and The Zuni Cookbook. Thanks alot everyone :biggrin: , I can't wait to join in!

  6. I have been wanting to try the Rustic potato loaves too. I have a problem though, I really read through the Pies and Tarts section and the Pastry section, and now I have 4 things that I absolutely have to make this week. They are the: Cardinal Slice, Espresso Profiteroles, French Apple Tart, and the Cocoa Nests with Caramel Mousse. I am going to have to invite people over just to eat all this stuff :laugh: .

    I wanted to add my croissant review with pictures but I haven't got them yet. They were incredible. They baked up big and beautiful, deep golden brown. Noone could decide which kind they liked best. However, for future reference it is not a good idea to eat nothing but croissants until dinnertime. I made myself literally sick. I had to lay down for a couple hours to recover. Then get some real food in my stomach :rolleyes: . I can't wait to show all the pictures.

    Shaloop, your bread is beautiful. I am going to have to track down some more semolina.

  7. I have got to say that I LOVE this book. I have made so far:

    White bread- It was very good. The best recipe out of a million that I have tried.

    Mixed starter baguettes and Epis- Wonderful. I can't wait to make them again.

    Walnut bread- Okay this is change your life bread. Absolutely fantastic. It was beautiful, it had a great crumb, and the taste..... Nutty and filling. I made it to make chocolate paninis, but actually preferred it plain.

    Brownies- Really good. I didn't have the problem of them not setting. They were perfect.

    Sticky buns- Very buttery. Rich with great texture.

    Pizza with onion confit- I enjoyed it, we could only finish one.

    Croissants!- This is what I am the most excited about. I finished the last turn a little while ago. I will form and bake tomorrow. I am hoping to make plain, almond and chocolate filled. This forming went perfectly. I had read upthread the revised instructions about folding the dough around the butter packet. I had no problems. I made the first turn immediatly. I made the other two after two-hour rests. They never warmed up at all. I was able to get the proper dimensions after a few minutes of rolling.

    I will try to take pictures tomorrow of the shaping and finished product to post. I do not have a digital camera yet, so it may be a while before I get them up.

    Anyone still baking from this?

  8. actually, from what i understand, grits (or the corn/hominy used to make grits) are treated with lye before being dried and ground...i don't think polenta is treated the same way.  anyone else?

    The sad reality is that common grits (i.e., Quaker Grits) are not made from hominy. It's nothing more than coarse white cornmeal. You have to get the fancy stuff if you want hominy.

    Blasphemy! :wink:

    I shuddered at the thought of this. I went and checked my Quaker and Aunt Jemima Grits packages. They both list hominy grits in their ingredient lists.

  9. I just came across this thread. I am a bit late, but thought I would post my favorites. I find this book full of substance.

    Biscuits: Very good, all-purpose ones. I do have some flakier recipes, but I turn to these when I need an all butter dinner biscuit. The chive and cream cheese ones are very flaky though.

    The rugelach are a little hard to handle, but absolutely delicious.

    I love her macaroons. My sister and I made all three versions. They turned out beautiful and delicious. The strawberry and vanilla did taste exactly the same though. The chocolate were my favorite.

    The blackberry roulade was fantastic. It was light and summery and delicious. The recipe worked perfectly. The mocha one was almost as good.

    I loved the financier recipes. I have never eaten another one so I do not have much info to base my opinion on.

    The sour cherry slab pie is my favorite recipe in the book. It is so hard for me to get sour cherries, I will not waste them on another recipe. This one is perfect. It has a much better ratio of crust to filling than traditional recipes. It also browns perfectly.

    The key lime tart was great. I liked it better than pie recipes. The graham cracker dough is great.

    The tomato tart was so savory. It is fancier than a pizza but with the same flavors. The mashed roasted garlic and fontina are wonderful.

    The pullman recipe is the best I've found and I have tried quite a few.

    I had forgotten about the cinnamon raison bread until now. It is amazing. The picture is killer.

    The parker house rolls were my favorite roll recipe untill the dinner roll recipe in the new Cooks Illustrated came out. They beat out Marthas for flavor by a landslide, but I still prefer the Parker House when it comes to texture.

    The cream puffs are really good. I love topping them with tart dough. I also really prefer my pastry cream lightened with whipped cream. I love that this recipe does that.

    Eclairs were just as good as the cream puffs. We ate a ton of them.

    I pulled my first strudel dough for the Cherry cheese strudel. It was easy to pull the dough, (who knew), moving the finished unbaked strudel to the pan was more difficult. It looked just like the picture!

    I have made a few more of the recipes, but these are my favorite. I found these recipes extremely well tested. The recipes worked perfectly. I have never had another cookbook, where such a high proprtion worked perfectly. The pictures are abundant and very inspiring.

    Alright, sorry for the long post :biggrin: .

  10. Pastry flour is commonly not self-rising. Althouth I believe you can find self-rising pastry if you look hard enough. In RLBs Pastry Bible she has a formula to make pastry flour. 1 part cake flour to 2 parts bleached AP flour. I just made a blackberry pie with it.

    It is not a substitute for pastry flour. It is pastry flour.

  11. Your pictures are lovely to behold as usual, Patrick...especially that delicate lemon sponge roll! I've only tried making a sponge cake roll once...that was about 10 years ago. I remember my sponge cake cracking when I was trying to roll it over the lemon curd and I got discouraged...I should try it again.  :smile:

    Welcome, Marcia! The colours in your picture are so vibrant!  :smile:

    Ling, if you can get your hands on Martha Stewarts Baking Handbook, try the blackberry or chocolate roulade. They are both incredible, the blackberry one is really delicious though. I think the chocolate might be mocha. Really fantastic.

    Patrick, that ice cream pic is perfect. It all looks great.

  12. Well thats all good and well if all the places you go had squeeze bottles of simple syrup. I agree that most people oversweeten. Thats why I always dispense half sweet and half unsweet. In my house I have to oversweeten because of my husband.

    I wouldn't go so far as to say sweet tea is evil though.

  13. Well, this does not help you one bit, but if anyone evers comes to West Monroe LA....... The best tea I have ever had was at Canards Restaurant. It had body, it was perfectly sweetened, not bitter, and with no cloudiness. I never knew I could feel so strongly about tea. I do not know what brand they use.

    My preferred method is 3 Lipton family sized tea bags. Place in a medium saucepan with one quart of water. Leave on medium heat until bubbles form on the sides of the saucepan. Discard teabags, do not squeeze. Pour in pitcher with 1/2-3/4 cups gran. sugar. Stir until dissolved. Add two quarts cold water. Drink within a day or two. Keep refrigerated.

  14. Last night I had Cooks Illustrateds Classic white layer cake with raspberry almond filling. It was really fantastic. The confectioners frosting was a little sweet, but most people love that. I just don't eat the majority of the frosting.

    I am sorry I do not have a cut piece, I ran out of film.

    gallery_32986_3239_635550.jpg

  15. I received Pierre Hermes recipe for Dacquoise from a friend when I was looking for a good recipe for it. In deciding to make this I found this thread. I finished reading all 31 pages a couple days ago. I love the thread and now want all the books.

    I was craving something with hazelnuts, chocolate and coffee so I added some thing to the recipe. I made an extra half batch of dacquoise and made three disks. I decided to try the caramel ganache because I've been wanting to try it. On the first layer a used a stabilized whipped cream flavored with espresso powder.

    It turned out really fantastic. The different textures were wonderful, and the taste was exactly what I wanted. My pictures aren't great, but they give you an idea.

    gallery_32986_3238_545021.jpg

    gallery_32986_3238_201431.jpg

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